Choke Point wi-9

by Ian Slater

  A towel hastily pulled around his waist, an auxiliaryman caught in mid-shampoo, all water noise cut off as “ultraquiet” was answered, emerged from the stall, mumbling obscenities, his hair still streaked with suds. A torpedo tech made way for him, flashing him a mocking “Come hither!” look that the suds man returned with a murderous glare. Every one of the fifteen officers and 149 enlisted men now knew this was no drill, and in their bunks men turned to their private comforts: a picture of family, a Bible, girlfriends, and, for some, a passage from the Koran; for others, there were dreams of what they’d do if God, or Fate, spared them from fatality in this strangest of conflicts of constantly shifting “trouble fronts.”

  Rorke had not told them that America had been attacked in the Northwest. Some were bound to have loved ones there, and why burden men on the boat with the anxiety of not knowing, of being unable to do anything out here deep in the netherworld of ocean? The best they could do, that he could do, Rorke knew, was get on with the job. Though badly shaken by the loss of the Utah, he was confident that he could get the 360-foot-long boat to launch point at precisely the right time — providing he could keep Encino in perfect trim. Encino did not have the bow thrusters some other boats had, which allowed them to hover at launch point, but barring any unforeseen circumstances, he told himself, he should have no trouble.

  The more superstitious among the crew, however, who nursed their captain’s death and recalled Rorke’s clumsy arrival — he’d slipped and fallen while coming aboard on the rain-slicked gangway — took these as two very bad signs, several of the crew believing in the theory that things come in threes.

  “Eternal Father Strong to Save” was the hymn played over McCain’s PA to the carrier’s five-thousand-plus men and women, the boat’s starboard aft elevator space crowded with off-duty personnel for whom the ship’s quartermaster had distributed song sheets. The religious and nonreligious who had gathered here were as diverse as American society itself, but all were bound by a patriotism so deeply felt and honored it aroused sniggers and embarrassment among other Western nations, except, ironically, in Russia, once its bitterest foe. But no one could be embarrassed now as the stentorian voice of the padre led the huge ad hoc choir in rough unison with such feeling that no one but the most self-indulgent cynic could fail to be moved by the swell of love for fallen comrades, so intense it could be heard by lookouts aboard the Aegis cruisers guarding the flanks of the huge man-o’-war.

  Admiral Crowley had determined that there would be no burial in the light of day for the enemy to take advantage of. When morning broke, he and the entire battle group would be ready to attack Penghu, the President surely giving first licks to McCain, whose air wing had been so grievously harmed by the PLA air force and for which everyone on the carrier held Beijing, its protestations notwithstanding, totally responsible.

  A complaint was brought to Commander John Cuso that “Eternal Father Strong to Save” was “sexist,” said it referred to the creator as being masculine.

  “What do we do?” asked the chief petty officer from the section in which the complainant originated.

  “I’ll file it,” promised Cuso. “Consider it later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When the CPO left, Cuso balled the complaint in his fist and chucked it into his wastebasket. “Filed.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Marte Price didn’t like the CNN makeup studio in Port Angeles. She said it reeked of fish. Everything reeked of fish, her producer told her, the smell coming from the thousands of dead fish in the strait.

  When Charles Riser arrived in the cab, the odor of Jack Daniel’s was still on his breath, though he’d vigorously brushed his teeth. He knew he would have to begin with an apology. It wasn’t only good manners, but a tactical necessity, if she was to believe what Wu Ling had told him: that General Chang must have discovered the rumored deal between Beijing and Li Kuan’s fanatically American-hating terrorists.

  What surprised Charles was Marte Price’s immediate and good-natured acceptance of his contrition. A woman who clearly didn’t hold petty grudges, he thought. He told her the story about how Mandy was murdered by Li Kuan’s thugs in Suzhou.

  “And this General Chang tried to help you find out where Li Kuan was?”

  “Yes. Then he disappeared. His girlfriend—”

  “Wu Ling, right?”

  “Yes.” Charles was impressed by her attentiveness and memory.

  “You told me you told State,” she said, “but that they don’t believe you, or rather, they think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill — not of Amanda’s death, but that your bereavement has made you paranoid.”

  “Something like that.” She was remarkable, insightful and quick. She paused and patted the pockets of her jeans. Her top, “on-camera” half was captive in a no-nonsense, gender-equality black business jacket and a high-collared, almost prudish, white blouse which was mocked by her lower, more casual attire. He liked her — a lot. He could tell she believed him about Chang’s discovery of a Beijing-Kazakhstan deal, which, if it could be proved, would result in crippling trade sanctions against China — the removal of its highly coveted U.S. “preferred-nation” status.

  “Mr. Riser, I have contacts — good contacts — at State,” she said. “They’ve suspected China of making such a deal with Li Kuan for months and—”

  “They have?” cut in Charles. “Then why on earth—”

  “Charles — may I call you Charles?”

  “Of course.”

  Charles Riser, she saw, was a decent man, a genuine cultural attaché, not a spy using the “cultural” cover. But he obviously didn’t understand the enormous economic war between the U.S. and China that was going to be one of the defining U.S. strategies of the twenty-first century, as the battle between Japan and the U.S. had been in the latter half of the twentieth.

  “The problem, Charles, is that State, the administration, needs concrete proof of such a deal before they can act.”

  Riser fell silent for several moments, and she saw there were tears in his eyes. “They always get away with it,” he said. “They should have got that bastard Kuan in Afghanistan.”

  Marte didn’t respond at once. There was no need. She knew what he meant. Why did the Li Kuans of the world, who murdered, raped, his child, so often evade punishment? Six Americans, the best of the best, led by David Brentwood, had died inside some damn cave in Afghanistan, and still Li Kuan was at large.

  Marte touched Riser’s hand. “I’m sorry I can’t do any more. You understand — rumor, speculation, is one thing. It’s concrete evidence we need.”

  He felt selfish, and after a long pause, nodded. He understood. He turned attention away from himself. “How are things up here?”

  “Not good. Jensen is dispatching two new state-of-the-art sub-hunter hydrofoils from San Francisco, in a couple of those monster Globemasters. But all our ships that were sunk, including the Utah, were supposed to have state-of-the-art antisub stuff aboard.”

  “This Jensen,” Charles asked. “He’s the sub admiral, right?” He didn’t really care; he just wanted to hear her talk. The last woman who’d touched him like that had been his wife, Elizabeth. It seemed a thousand years ago. He felt utterly exhausted, unable even to will himself to move.

  “Jensen is—was—COMSUBPAC Group 9,” replied Marte. “He sent a Coast Guard ship, the Skate, in to help. In horrible search conditions. Everything socked in by fog.” There was a pause. “Look—” she began.

  Her producer was anxious and gestured at her. In three minutes she was to give a report on the sea of refugees still moving south into Oregon and California.

  “Have you got a picture of Amanda?” she asked Charles. “Anything we might use if something breaks?” It was a question she’d asked scores of bereaved parents during her reporter’s career.

  He had a lot of pictures of Mandy, one with Wu Ling.

  “ ’Course,” said Charles, “you’ve got one of this—” He
paused. “—animal.” It was the same computer-enhanced photo of Li Kuan that the CIA and other agencies had, the terrorist’s pockmarked bald scalp and hazel European eyes in stark contrast to his otherwise distinctly Chinese features. The pockmarked scalp gave Kuan what Charles told Marte was a particularly sinister appearance, even for a terrorist.

  In her twenty years as a correspondent, Marte had seen terrorists and other cold-blooded killers, such as Ted Bundy, who looked almost angelic, so Li Kuan’s appearance did not unduly affect her. “Yes,” she said, handing the photo back to Charles, “we already have this on file. Everyone has, Charles. It’s the only one, and as you can see, not a particularly useful one.”

  She was trying to explain to him that you just can’t stick someone’s photo on TV, even that of a terrorist, and say they’re linked to Beijing — that they’re in cahoots — without proof. And there had been absolutely no evidence from any of the media feed she was getting that the Muslim terrorists had anything to do with China’s push against Taiwan.

  “But,” Charlie Riser countered, “Muslim terrorists everywhere hate Americans.”

  “Yes,” she conceded, “they do,” but she knew it was a non sequitur, Charlie Riser understandably fixated on the terrorists because of his daughter’s murder. Marte empathized. She remembered the terrible murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who’d been captured by the Taliban in 2002, horribly tortured and then executed, his grisly death videotaped by the terrorists. Pearl left a grieving wife and an unborn son behind. Even the hard-bitten types amongst the international media had been shocked.

  Charlie Riser looked over at her and said, “I have a gut feeling that Li Kuan is behind these sub attacks. You know,” he told Marte, “he tells Beijing, ’You help us hit the Great Satan and we’ll be no trouble in Kazakhstan.’ “

  Marte Price’s producer gave up on his earlier polite tone. “Marte! Ten seconds!” he shouted.

  She put her hand on Charles’s. “I’ll do what I can, talk to Freeman — see what he has.” With that, she rose quickly and got back in front of the universal eye.

  “Five seconds, Marte.”

  “Proof,” she said to Riser. “Concrete proof. If your friend Chang manages to smuggle out any concrete proof to Wu Ling — call me.”

  Then she was back on air.

  State had been looking for Charles everywhere, and when he got back to Seattle, the tall girl was waiting, trying to be very stern. “Washington expected you in D.C. today.”

  “Did they?”

  “Yes, and I’ve been told you’re to leave on this evening’s flight from SeaTac.”

  “I’m embarrassing the department.”

  “Well — yes.”

  “All right,” he sighed. What else could he do? He’d been trained in diplomacy. It was all he knew. “I’ve done my best,” he said.

  The tall girl from State could have sworn he wasn’t talking to either her or himself. It was as if someone else was in the room.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Freeman’s “jimmy leg,” as his team had always referred to the sudden jerks the general’s limbs would make while he was asleep, was getting worse — and alarming to anyone who’d never seen the medical condition.

  “Is he okay?” one of the side-scan techs asked Frank Hull.

  “He’ll be fine,” responded Frank, whose eyes were glued to the profile coming up on the new roll of paper.

  “Geez, I wouldn’t want anyone to see me like that.”

  “He always wants to be near the action,” said Frank. “Besides, I don’t think anyone’s told him. You could, if you want.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The other technician, like Hall, was watching the slowly emerging outline of the sea bottom, never tiring of the side-scan sonar’s magic. You sent down an invisible sound wave, and back it came, morphed into a visible line that formed a part in the larger jigsaw pattern of echoes whose overall picture should soon tell them if there was a sub down there or not. The tech hoped not — he’d witnessed enough action for a lifetime, the sight of the terrorists that Freeman had killed ironically more troubling to him because, unlike the American dead from the multiple sinkings, rigor mortis had not yet set in. The one Freeman had been staring down at looked as if he was still alive, eyes open. The penny-on-the-eyelids thing one of Petrel’s crew had tried failed to keep the eyelids shut, the coins falling off because of residual muscle movement that had sent the pennies running across the deck, which Tiny confessed had “totally freaked” him.

  “Those hydrofoil sub chasers Jensen’s sending up to Everett,” the tech said to Frank, “they should be here soon, right?”

  “Half an hour, maybe more,” replied Frank, eyes still on the trace. “Everyone goes slow in the fog.”

  “And,” put in the other technician unhelpfully, “it’ll soon be dark.”

  Freeman’s leg shot out.

  “Jesus Christ—”

  “Settle down,” Frank told the tech. “If that slab we saw earlier was the sub lying low, it might be gone by now, under cover of our prop disturbance during the firefight.”

  “Looks like we’re back at the site, Captain!” one of the techs said excitedly.

  Frank nodded.

  Freeman’s “Jimmy leg” had started up again, which caught young Cookie’s attention. Overloaded with a tray bearing thick white mugs of coffee and hot chocolate for dry lab and stern watches, he stepped over the lab’s door. “No beer, I’m afraid, gents,” he announced cheerfully, resolved to show that corpses on deck didn’t scare him. He could handle it.

  “Thanks,” said Frank, without looking up. “Away from the recorder, son.”

  “Don’t have to worry, Cap—”

  “Stop engines!” Frank shouted into the intercom. Barely any movement resulted, but in the slight yaw of the ship, Cookie lost his balance, an avalanche of white mugs spilling chocolate and coffee crashing onto the dry lab’s floor.

  “Wha …?” Freeman was up, one arm around Cookie’s neck, the other holding the K-bar’s blade an inch from the man’s throat.

  “Could be the sub!” Hall said loudly, the small, black sound-reflective six-by-six-inch squares on the mud bottom, just a few feet east of the “slab.” The squares were not rubberized anechoic tiles, or they would not have reflected the sonar signals. Like the gaps seen on the space shuttle that had shown where the heat-shield tiles had fallen off, Frank believed he was seeing bare metal squares on the sub, that the tiles had either fallen off through wear and tear or been shot off earlier by Freeman’s team during the fight at the falls.

  Freeman had sheathed his knife, quickly apologized to Cookie, and stepped to the left of the recorder. The stylus was flashing back and forth now under the lab’s night lights. He said nothing, his attention riveted on the profile.

  “Bosun!” Frank called. “You have a weight on that LOSHOK pack?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s ready to go. Same depth, sir?”

  “Yes. Thirty-two fathoms. Stern party, stand by to lower. Minimum noise. They can hear us, but I don’t want their Passive to pick up the splash when we drop the LOSHOK. I’ll start Petrel slow ahead — make them think we’ve found nothing and decided to go on.”

  “Yes, sir.” The bosun strode out onto the stern. “Jimmy, Mal, Tiny — over here.”

  Frank called Sandra Riley on the bridge. “I think we’ve found the sub,” he said. “Can you see the Skate?”

  “No, sir. Fog’s too thick. But I’ve got her on radar. She’s about a mile to starboard on the north-south leg of her search grid.”

  “Any sign of those two hydrofoils?” Frank asked, conscious of the fact that while the Skate was heavily deck-armed, she had no depth charges of any sort. “I don’t want to use the radio to contact Skate,” he continued. “If it is the sub down there, it could be trailing an aerial — to pick up our transmission.”

  “I assumed that it would have made a run for it under cover of our engine noise during th
e—”

  “Yes,” agreed Frank. “I don’t know why they haven’t.”

  Freeman cut in, telling Sandra, “I think we winged the son of a bitch, sweetheart. Not on the hull proper, but its ballast tanks. Like having puncture holes in your inflatable. You can still move, but slowly, and you’d have to send a swimmer out through the sub’s air lock to repair the holes. You can’t do that quietly.”

  Frank was nodding his agreement.

  “Anyway,” the general concluded, “this LOSHOK of yours should do it. Rip the damn boat open like a can o’ sardines!”

  On deck, Tiny was on standby, ready to lower the seventy-pound pack of explosive overboard once Frank gave him the order. He didn’t like it. The captain’s assumption that it was definitely the sub, and the flamboyant general’s talk of what “should” happen, made him nervous. So did the dynamite. “Truth is,” he told Jimmy, “you don’t know from one minute to the next what’s gonna—”

  “Hey!” cut in the bosun. “Rain-in-the-Face, knock it off. You have that LOSHOK chain weight taped down? I don’t want that friggin’ chain to rattle and roll on the way down.”

  “It won’t,” Tiny assured him, lifting the combined weight of 130 pounds with one hand as if it was a bunch of grapes.